Born without Innocence
by pumpkinskull
Summary: Various stories from the childhood of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Currently T for... violence and language? I'm sure it'll get there eventually.
1. One couple

Note del auteur : So I've become completely and totally obsessed with the teenage Tom Riddle ever since I started RPing him on this one site, but as it turns out there aren't a lot of sites where he fits in. So instead, fan-fics! … yeah. This will be more like a collection of several short stories about his life in the orphanage… some from before Hogwarts, some from his torturous times summering there every year, and maybe even some reflections by the Lord Voldemort. I will probably make seperate stories for anything important that happens at Hogwarts, although I might include a few short ones here yeah. It might be in chronological order. I doubt it.

I clearly own nothing. :3 I'm sure it'll start off fairly rubbishy. I'm just toying with the mind of a child psychopath, you see...

--

The couple smiled at the boy, but in their eyes there was only a curious fear, and then they looked away; looked to the other children of the orphanage.

Tom Riddle's dark gaze shot down as soon as the eye contact was broken, seemingly uninterested, unphased by yet another rejection of the basest sort. All of these couples, these children less parents, these men searching for cheap labourers, had only to look at him to know that he wasn't the one for them. A sweet little boy of five, of six, of eight or nine.

He couldn't have been that frightening when he was still a babe, still hardly able to walk. But stories of his mother screaming about witches and wizards had made the orphanage staff wary of him. They had no interest in this boy, this boy that would turn out to be so different from the others.

Who knew? If they had treated him kindly, been warm and welcoming; if they had been given the funds to care properly for their children; who knew, maybe Tom Marvolo Riddle would never have found a need to use magic.

But the confused boy of four, the very angry boy of ten, had indeed used magic.

At first it had been an accident. But he was always so filled with anger; so desperate for survival in the horrible orphanage, and he had plenty of reasons to use his special talents. First it was for a good cause, to fend off those who would cause him harm; and then in vengeance, against those who thought they could control him, those who thought oh so stupidly that they might call themselves his _betters- _and then merely- merely if he felt like it. A flinch of pain, someone flying across the room, bizarre illusions, a floating boy, and always there were the snakes.

The hopeful would-be parents looked around the orphanage. The woman was plump and short, with reddish hair; the man, taller, with a tired look and short black hair. As soon as they turned away from him, Tom's eyes went back up, to glare at them through the backs of their heads. Always they did this, all of them; they would approach the boy who promised to grow into a handsome lad, but at the red flash in his eyes they would be reminded of warnings. _Some of them can be violent sometimes…_ They always tried to play it down, never mentioned his name, but they all intuitively knew who it was.

Bitterly, Tom turned back to the book in his hands. It wasn't that interesting, but it gave him a satisfaction to turn the pages with a neat, angry snap; and to keep it away from the other children who wanted it so badly. The fifteen-year-old boy who used to try to beat things out of him, cowering away from him, looking hopefully at the parents and always sending those worried glances to the fellow orphan.

The couple decided on not deciding; on coming back at some later time. They cast Tom one last glance, full of both longing and interest, and a sort of primal, instinctive horror; made their excuses with embarrassed smiles, and said that they'd come back later, that there was still another orphanage to check, that it was so hard to make such an important decision so quickly.

Their backs were met with a sneer from Tom, a look of desperation from the other orphans, and a resigned sigh from the matrons.

_It's all your fault_, they used to say. _It's all your fault that they won't take us. You scare them off. Why do you have to do that? Just because none of them will ever take you, it doesn't give you the right to ruin our chances._

Tom used to face these accusations fearfully, helplessly. It couldn't be his fault, because most of the children, invariably, were eventually given homes, or at least found work. It wasn't Tom's fault that he was different, just as it wasn't his fault that his mother had died from giving birth to him, just as it wasn't the fault of any of the other orphans that their parents were dead.

But now he had power. And what a power it was.

He could taste it, sense it all around him. He felt strangely connected to the world, to the dust on that window frame, to the desks and chairs in the building, the old dilapidated cots. He knew now that it was because he could control them- control them to an extent that had been hitherto unrecorded in the Wizarding world for such a young child, a child who knew nothing of his true identity, even.

He could feel the power he had; over the rain outside if he wanted, over the snakes. He could speak to snakes.

But more than that he relished in the strength he had, the mystical, mysterious power he wielded over the other orphans. He could make them play his games, and he always won at them; or if he didn't, he sought and received retribution in ways unthinkably harsh.

Even the matrons found it hard to believe, sometimes. Tom could be such a charming young boy if he wanted to: the face of an angel, the big brown eyes that could melt a heart as soon as pierce it with a gaze of ice; the innocent smiles he could give- it was so hard to tell when he was lying. An intelligent boy, an ingenious boy, the first to find out the most secrets of the matrons, of his fellow orphans, just through the work of his silver tongue.

In all honesty he was more like the angel from hell. There were so many things he did, so many strange things that they couldn't just explain away. Why the scrawny, malnourished child was able to throw off any of the others, any of the workers even if he set his mind to it. The things he could see in the dark, in the others' eyes. The way he listened so intently; the way he had with snakes. And the horrors he could pull from his mind, the ruthless, merciless tortures. He had an imagination, all right, like any child should; but it was not put to the use of innocent make-believe. Even in play he sought nothing so much as control and power over the other children.

Power was what he always wanted. It was what he needed, what he fought for- his one true goal. Control over his own young miserable life.

The dark mind of a young monster.


	2. First magic

It's short. Better ones ought to come along sometime soon.

* * *

The young boy stared up at his hands, eyes wide, breath stuck in his throat. He couldn't have been more than four, hardly human yet, although he'd already faced more than many others would deal with in their entire lives.

And now, curled up on the broken-in bed, the dark night wrapped around him more protectively than the coarse sheets, there was a light in his hand. It was soft sphere that glowed enough to illuminate the room in a cool flush, dull enough that it didn't awaken the other boys in the room, but bright enough to fend off the encroaching darkness.

He wasn't afraid of the dark; only, he'd been startled when something had moved. It had probably been nothing more than a mouse, but you could never know in these places- sleeping lightly could save you from all sorts of terrible fates at the hands of other orphans, older orphans.

He hadn't been certain how it had happened; only that he had wanted light, and that a star must have fallen from the sky into his hands to provide it for him. The sphere shed heat only when he touched it directly, no warmth emanated from it, and the light it cast was a decidedly chill shade of white- but it comforted him nonetheless.

It intrigued him.

His breathing had returned to him, without his notice, and caught again when the sound of it threatened his concentration. It wasn't so bright that it hurt his eyes to look at it, but when he looked away there was a glowing purple outline of a sphere, its edges vaguely shrouded by his hands.

He almost wanted to know what it might taste like- something sweet, something wonderful, but he knew instinctively that if he lifted it to his mouth, it would leave him. So instead he held it above his head, unsteady grip sending the light trembling across the room. Leaping shadows darted about him and he didn't take the slightest notice.

He was growing tired once more, but he did not want to go to sleep, did not want to lose the light that he stroked gently once, like a pet.

But slowly, his eyelids crept shut, and he rolled onto his side, holding the light to his cheek, where it slowly faded, leaving warmth in its wake. He was too tired, too soothed to become upset at its absence, although something hollow filled him as he drifted off to sleep.

When he awoke in the morning, Tom Riddle did not immediately remember what had happened during the night; the bustle of life distracted him, so that he couldn't dwell on it, try to duplicate the event, until when he remembered it much later on that day… and a small smile formed at his lips when he did, for he knew finally, that he was special.


End file.
